the Monster Under the Bed
by doyou000me
Summary: "The monster under the bed is going to eat you." Dudley had only said it because he was angry that Harry had been given his second bedroom and he didn't want him in there, but Harry didn't know that. "Please don't eat me," he whispered.


**The monster under the bed**

"The monster under the bed is going to eat you."

Dudley had only said it because he was angry that Harry had been given his second bedroom and he didn't want him in there, but Harry didn't know that. Strange things had happened lately, after all, with owls coming with letters and the talking snake at the zoo, so why wouldn't the monster under the bed be real? Besides, he was only ten years old – almost eleven.

Now, for the first time, he had his own bed and his own room, even though it was cluttered with Dudley's broken and discarded toys. Still, he dared not try out the bed, dared not lay down to sleep for the night. Instead, he sat on the floor with his back against the wall and with thin arms he hugged his legs to his chest. It was dark in the room, the only illumination coming from the light of a streetlamp outside that created a yellow rectangle in the ceiling, but it was darker still under the bed. It was this darkness Harry fearfully watched with baited breath as he waited for a sign of movement.

Nothing had moved so far.

The house of number 4 Privet Drive was silent and sleepy. From his position on the floor, Harry could hear Vernon's snores and the squeaking springs in Dudley's bed as they protested under his weight. A car drove by on the street outside, loud music sounding thought the open side window. Then the car was gone and the silence returned, and Vernon snored.

Still, nothing moved under the bed, but this did not reassure little Harry. Quite the contrary; he was convinced that the monster under the bed was simply hiding from him. When he had gone to bed, believing that the monster didn't exist, it would come out from under the bed and eat him. He shuddered at the thought and gave a quiet whimper of fear.

"Please don't eat me," he whispered, his voice barely audible as he feared waking his relatives almost as much as he feared getting eaten by the monster under the bed, but he was convinced that the monster could hear him all the same. "I don't think I taste very good at all."

There was no answer, but this time, he was sure he saw something shift under the bed. With eyes wide open, he held his breath and waited, but the darkness was still once again. Narrow shoulders slumped as Harry drew in a rushing breath of air and then sighed. What was he going to do? Like this, he wouldn't get any sleep at all for fear of being eaten.

Resting his chin on knobby knees, he frowned in deep concentration. Several minutes passed in silence, the springs on Dudley's bed squeaked, and nothing happened.

"Are you… hungry?" Harry asked quietly and peered into the darkness under the bed with dawning realization. How many times hadn't he curled up in the darkness of his cupboard under the stairs with a belly grumbling for food?

Suddenly, he remembered the package of chocolate chip cookies he'd seen Dudley eat from before dinner – they'd looked delicious and he was sure that they tasted better than he did. With an eye on the darkness under the bed, Harry steadied himself with a hand against the wall and got up from the floor. On silent feet, he tiptoed to the door and pushed it opened with great care, so, _so_ slowly so as not to make a sound. Luckily, it wasn't locked like his cupboard had been.

The landing was dark and still and the only light came through the window in the door downstairs. Vernon's snores sounded more loudly. The springs squeaked under Dudley's weight. Harry glanced over his shoulder; nothing moved under the bed.

He slipped through the door and stole down the stairs, one step at the time, and he made sure to skip the last one that creaked. The distant bark of a dog almost scared him out of his mind and for several long minutes he stood frozen. He didn't dare move and barely dared to breathe as he listened for any sign that his relatives had been woken by the dog, but Vernon's snores continued.

With a nervous gulp, he slipped down the hallway, past his old cupboard, and into the kitchen. There, there was more light coming in from the streetlamps, and he cast a quick glance through the windows at the empty street outside. Having made sure that there was no one watching, he tiptoed over to the table and slowly pulled out one of the chairs, pausing with baited breath every time it made the slightest of noise against the floor.

Pulling it up against the fridge took many tense minutes of careful labour, and when it was finally in place, he breathed a quiet sight of relief. Still, he did not allow himself any rest as he quickly climbed up onto the chair. He was so short he had to stand on his toes and stretch to reach the cabinet over the fridge, and then he had to strain even further to reach the yellow package of cookies.

Once he had his prize in his hands, he took only one cookie from the package even though they looked delicious and he badly wanted one for himself. Then he put the package back, precisely where it had been, and closed the cabinet. Next, he climbed down onto the floor and took a piece of kitchen paper to place the cookie on before he returned the chair to its proper place by the table, just as slowly and carefully as he had taken it. Then, with the cookie held in paper, he made his way back through the hallway and up the stairs on silent feet. Through the door he slipped and then he closed it behind himself without a sound.

When he turned around, the room looked just like it did when he left it. The rectangle of light in the ceiling hadn't changed and nothing was moving in the darkness under the bed. Vernon's snores and the squeaking springs were muted by the closed door. With slow, careful movements, Harry kneeled on the floor and shifted closer to his bed, acting much as he would have when trying to approach a wild animal. Before him, he held the cookie out on the piece of paper. He moved as close as he dared, his small body trembling with both excitement and fear, and then he put the cookie onto the floor and shuffled back again.

With his back against the wall, he took slow, deep breaths. Wide eyes stared fixedly at the cookie that lay on the paper just beside the bed, barely an inch from the darkness thereunder. He waited, and waited, and nothing moved.

After several moments of nothing, his narrow shoulders sagged and he sobbed. The monster under the bed didn't want the delicious cookie that he had gone through so much trouble to get for it, and now he wouldn't be able to sleep all night because if he did fall asleep, he would be eaten. Another heart-wrenching sob was torn from him and his shoulders shook as tears rose in his eyes, threatening to spill over and run down his cheeks.

Then, when all hope seemed lost, a black tendril reached out from under the bed, towards the cookie. Harry gasped and then clamped his mouth shut and clapped his hands over it to stay silent as he watched with wide eyes. The dark tendril looked a bit like an arm that ended with two claws, almost like a snake's tongue, and it hesitated briefly when it reached the edge of the paper. A second tendril appeared and there was a glimmer in the dark like the reflection of light in the black eyes of a crow. The monster under the bed took the cookie and pulled it into the darkness, out of view, and then soft crunching could be heard.

With a watery smile, Harry dried the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Is it good?" he whispered and the crunching stopped for a moment. Light reflected off of black eyes again and then the crunching continued.

"I'm sure it tastes better than I do, so now you won't have to eat me," he added.

Tired, he rose from the floor and glanced one last time at the darkness under the bed before he climbed into his bed for the first time. The mattress was lumpy, the springs rusty and the blanket worn thin, but it mattered little to Harry because it was pure luxury when compared to the pallet he had slept on the cupboard. With a content smile he curled up under the blanket and made himself comfortable.

He drifted to sleep happy that night, knowing that there was a cookie-eating monster under his bed to guard him in his dreams.

**I've wanted to write about Harry and Sebastian (the monster under the bed) for a long time now, but I need a story for the two of them first, so I wrote this little thing just to get them out of my system. I hope you enjoyed it! **


End file.
